Singapore Cracks Down on Greenwashing with New Business Guidelines

Singapore's competition watchdog, the Competition and Consumer Commission of Singapore (CCS), has released new guidance to combat greenwashing, which involves businesses making exaggerated or misleading environmental claims. Developed over nearly two years, the guide aims to help companies build customer trust and ensure their sustainability claims are factual and not merely empty promises.

The CCS outlines five key principles that businesses must follow when making claims about their products’ qualities or benefits. These claims are required to be true and accurate, clear and easily understood by the average consumer, and meaningful, focusing only on material product attributes rather than insignificant ones.

Crucially, the guidance mandates that claims must be supported by evidence that is credible, valid, specific, and up to date. Businesses must provide sufficient substantiation and present supporting information in an accessible manner. Furthermore, any claimed ambitions or goals must be made with a genuine intention and be reasonably achievable.

The new framework was prompted by concerns over vague claims and follows recent enforcement actions in the city-state. This includes the high-profile banning of advertisements for Prism+ air conditioners and a VietJet promotion, both stopped for misleadingly promoting carbon-intensive products as "eco-friendly."

Singapore's CCS greenwashing guidance - five principles combining accuracy, clarity, materiality, evidence-based substantiation and genuine intent - establishes clear rules that businesses must follow when making sustainability claims. Two years of development combined with recent enforcement actions (Prism+ air conditioners, VietJet promotion) signal serious enforcement intent.

The evidence-based-substantiation requirement is particularly consequential. Vague or aspirational claims without measurement architecture become non-compliant under the framework. Companies that historically relied on green-marketing language without underlying substantiation face material regulatory and reputational risk.

For consumer-goods brands, retailers, financial services companies and their marketing and CSR partners across Singapore and ASEAN, Cognitud's ESG strategy and transformation, sustainability due diligence and impact assessment teams help clients evaluate exposure to greenwashing regulation, structure claim-substantiation frameworks aligned with CCS principles, and prepare disclosures aligned with SGX, MAS and jurisdictional sustainability-claim frameworks.